The current trends in manufacturing are towards lowering inventory levels to reduce costs yet still be able to handle increasingly shorter lead times to satisfy demand. This conflict of objectives forces companies to seek ways in which to optimize production, reduce non value added activities such as set-up and changeover times, and highlight potential problems early so that action can be taken to balance demand with capacity. Preactor was developed to meet this need.
Is Preactor compatible with the existing ERP system?
Preactor is designed to enable rather than replace legacy systems. Preactor is frequently integrated with ERP, accountancy packages, data collection tools, forecasting and demand planning packages. It provides detailed schedules and an interactive planning environment that businesses need to become more agile, react to sudden changes in demand and make deliveries on time.
What you need is visibility
You need to see what’s happening now and what effect your decisions will have on the future. Preactor advanced planning and scheduling solutions deliver this. They help you see the current load, show the impact of unexpected events on capacity and delivery promises and give you a tool to test the options before decisions are made.
What type of company uses Preactor?
Preactor has been used successfully in many different types of planning and scheduling environment. It has a significant installed base in:
Automotive & Aerospace;
Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals;
Electronics & Electrical Equipment;
Food & Beverages;
Furniture & Wood Products;
Glass, Ceramics & Basic Materials;
Metals & Metal Fabricated Products;
Printing & Packaging;
Precision Engineering;
Retail & Services;
Rubber & Plastics;
Textiles & Apparel;
Transport & Logistics.
Preactor is used by small owner-managed businesses, medium sized manufacturing companies through to some of the largest corporations in the world which use Preactor as their global solution.
What are the potential benefits?
There are more than 50 documented case studies showing how companies have benefited through Preactor, in particular lower stocks and inventory levels, higher productivity through better sequencing and obtaining new business through improved on-time delivery performance:
15-20% improvement in productivity – get more from what you already have;
40-50% reduction in raw materials inventory – synchronize purchasing with an achievable schedule;
40-50% reduction in makespan time – reduce WIP that slows down production flow;
50-90% improvement in customer service – increase on-time deliveries.
Only pay for what you need
Preactor is not just a single point solution. It represents a family of products that, although based on exactly the same core code, have different levels of functionality and price points so that you select the version that meets your specific needs and budget available. Because all versions share common code, upgrading from one version to another is easy and straight forward. There are three main types of planning and scheduling tools:
Finite Capacity Scheduling (FCS) Tools;
Capacity Planning Tools;
Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) Tools.
Finite Capacity Scheduling
This set of tools which includes Preactor Lite, 100, 200 and 300 are characterized by the scheduling algorithm used to generate a good and achievable schedule, days, weeks, even months ahead. They are typically used by planners as a day-to-day decision support tool to manage orders and respond to events at shop floor level. Lite and 100 are aimed at small companies with very limited budgets and will typically be run stand alone. They are used straight out of the box and have limited levels of customizability.
Preactor 200 and 300 are more flexible and have additional features for more complex scheduling applications. For example sequence dependent changeover times and transfer batching is available in P200, and multiple constraints per operation in P300.
Capacity Planning
Preactor 300 can also be configured for Capacity Planning. There are many differences between planning and scheduling applications. Capacity Planning focuses on deciding what, when and where to make product usually based on forecast demand, current stocks and inventory control rules. Adding this data to current sales orders provides the basis for the generation of a Master Production Schedule (MPS).
Advanced Planning & Scheduling
Preactor 400 APS has additional algorithms to deal with even the most complex of applications and allows scheduling to take into account both process resources such as machines, labour and tools as well as materials. It has a number of optimization rules in-built to deal with such problems as minimizing changeover times, preferred sequencing, bottleneck scheduling and campaigning. However where these rules do not meet the exact requirements, then you can add unique customized rules to meet your needs.
Preactor 400 APS also has features for automatically linking individual orders, for example, in assembly applications. Often ERP systems will create manufacturing orders for each level of the Bill of Materials (BOM) and may include, in non make-to-order environments, parts for many different sales orders. Preactor 400 APS can use the BOM structure together with user definable pegging rules to link or peg orders together. These links are used as part of schedule generation so that if, for example, material produced by an order is delayed, then the impact on one or more orders it supplies can be established. This can be extended to purchase orders for bought-out items and to sales orders so full material traceability is available.
For further information please call us on +7 (843) 272 1137 or e-mail n.marat@icl.kazan.ru.
